I think in this day and age it is not a bad idea having a thread for each major country that affect our future. It looks like Saudi Arabia is the next. Been around for a long time and still generating way too much mischief. So maybe this will have legs.

So I thought I would open this topic on the latest outrage in the Turkish Embassy. Did Khashoggi manage to actually record his own death and transmit to the cloud simultaneously? I don't think so, but you guys might know differently.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

So I'll just throw down the gauntlet here. If we just decided to wipe out Saudi Arabia (including Mecca and Medina) would we have enough firepower to be the last ones standing after all the inevitable blowback?

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.” --Dr. Seuss

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

The Apple Watch also won’t necessarily give investigators a second-by-second chart of Khashoggi’s heart rate. Because their battery lives are limited, Apple Watches typically only collect that sort of granular data if a person is exercising. Otherwise, the watch usually only samples a user’s heart rate by measuring it every five minutes. You would only be able to see the heart rate fluctuations indicating a murder if the attack happened while the watch was taking a sample. More advanced versions of the watch and its operating system do have an A.I. feature that can sense when a person is exercising or exhibits a sudden spike in heart rate, so it’s possible that the device would pick up on a victim’s elevated rates during an attack. But since we don’t know the specs of his particular watch, it’s hard to say whether this might be the case here.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

There's always Pakistan and are we sure the the Saudis have no nukes? I agree it's far fetched but obliterating another rich country may produce unanticipated results. There's also the minor matter of all those citizens and residents of Saudi who have nothing to do with that government's actions. As to Pakistan, destroying Mecca might piss them off what with it being Islam's holy city and all.

President Trump has once again come to the defense of Saudi Arabia, telling reporters on Monday morning that Saudi officials have repeatedly denied murdering critic and journalist Jamal Khashoggi—and suggesting that Khashoggi could have been murdered by “rogue killers” instead. “I just spoke with the king of Saudi Arabia, who denies any knowledge of what took place, with regard to, what he said, was his Saudi Arabian citizen,” Trump said, according to pool video outside the White House. Trump added that he is sending Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia to investigate. “I don’t want to get into [the king’s] mind,” Trump added, “but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows?”

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

“I don’t want to get into [the king’s] mind,” Trump added, “but it sounded to me like maybe these could have been rogue killers. Who knows?”

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

So I'll just throw down the gauntlet here. If we just decided to wipe out Saudi Arabia (including Mecca and Medina) would we have enough firepower to be the last ones standing after all the inevitable blowback?

I guess if you are a completely amoral psychopath then you think that killing millions of innocent people is acceptable so then you know.. as long as you are standing at the end what else matters?

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

I guess if you are a completely amoral psychopath then you think that killing millions of innocent people is acceptable so then you know.. as long as you are standing at the end what else matters?

Fortunately our Constitutional checks and balances will protect us from anyone like that having power.

Have a nice day.

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

I know a little about the surveillance trade. In the old days a bug would be placed in situ and the battery would be gone in a week. Now days the bugs have a pulsed receiver that can last for years on a battery and turn on the TX as required. A bug can be in place for years before it is activated. I have seen bugs in bricks, pens, anything small. Squirt bugs record sound and squirt the sound out in pulses hundreds of times faster so that it looks like noise. Snuggle bugs operate near or at powerful local radio stations and the powerful local signals are removed by antennas or other means. Mobile phone software bugs are at least 38 years old, they were used in those huge phones with rubber ducky antennas and can be remotely activated. Same goes for computers and even smart TV's. Laser beams shined on windows get modulated and can be detected, split light beams being very noise free. Beamed microwaves are also effective and can pick up sound modulations on a lot of items. A few years ago I phoned up an ex-spook and asked what was popular and he said for long range snooping RF beaming was still in vogue. (That sort of took me back because it was first used by the Russians 50 odd years ago) Then there are telephone pole bugs with local date-time recorders. And on and on and on ----

If I had to guess I would say someone in that embassy had a smart phone, switched on - or not, makes no difference.

A doctor knows a little about a lot. A specialist knows a lot about a little. In time the doctor knows less and less about more and more and the specialist knows more and more about less and less until ultimately the doctor knows nothing about everything and the specialist knows everything about nothing.

Fortunately our Constitutional checks and balances will protect us from anyone like that having power.

Have a nice day.

Curse you! I wanted to sleep tonight.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire